Gay, Peter (Jack) (1923– )

German-born US academic and historian. He is known for his often controversial reassessments of broad topics such as the Enlightenment, 19th-century middle-class culture, and the art and politics of imperial and Weimar Germany. His writings on these subjects have an appeal beyond the confines of the academic disciplines and community. They include the two-volume history, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (1966, 1969), and his two-volume study, The Bourgeois Experience (1984, 1985). A lifelong interest in Sigmund Freud, encouraged him to write the biography, Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988).

Gay was born in Berlin, Germany, and emigrated to the USA as a youth. He studied for degrees in political science and history, gaining a PhD from Columbia University in 1951. Later he would study for a further degree in psychoanalysis (1983). He taught at Columbia (1947–69), before becoming Sterling Professor of History at Yale University (1969).